Page 44 of Honey Cut
I suck his fingers eagerly, and I choke a little as he pushes them all the way to the back of my tongue. He pulls them free just as I do and slaps my breast hard enough to make me whimper. And then he takes me by the upper arm and hauls me to my feet, turning me to face the guests. I don’t need to look down to know that there’s a handprint now blooming on the soft skin.
“What do you think?” Mark asks the crowd. His voice is rich, beguiling. “Will she make a fine wife? Will she do for us?”
Us. I don’t know if that’s the royalweor if it’s the literal truth, and I don’t think I care. A fever is winding its way through my blood now, sinking into my muscles and under my skin. I’m covered in goose bumps, I’m shivering, I’m panting. I’m so slick between the legs with just the weight of a collar on my neck and the humiliation of having my dress torn.
The guests make a noise—a cheer, a plea, both. I’ll do, they seem to say, but they want more proof… They need another test, a harder one.
Mark lifts a finger to his lower lip in mock thoughtfulness. “Perhaps we should see more, hmm? Perhaps I should see the goods I’ve paid for.”
The guests like that. They cheer and lean forward, probably thinking Mark is delving into a little role-play, a little drama to season the display of power we’re acting out. Only a bare few in this room know how true his words are. That the words could only be truer if he’d mentioned that we’d boughteach other. Lyonesse’s secrets for Laurence Bank’s.
Or so Mark thinks, anyway.
Mark’s fingers are still wrapped tightly around my arm, and he uses his other hand to find the skirt of my gown, to ruck it up to my waist with undeniable drama. Soon I can feel the air of the room against my thighs, against the damp gusset of the white thong I wear.
He lets go of my arm to cup me there, hard enough to lift me onto my toes. The sudden pressure on my cunt is a heel kick of pleasure, and I suck in a breath, needing more, needing him never to stop.
“It’s wet,” he tells the crowd. “Should we see if it’s pretty too?”
Oh, they like this. They like this a lot. The appearance of decorum is dissolving now, held together only by the way they stay sitting, the way their calls fade away with the notes of the octet still coming from the shadows.
Mark tugs the thong to the side, revealing my naked center, which, without its curls, exposes every last secret of itself. My labia are visible and my clitoris too, and judging by the way the air feels against my slick pussy, I think my arousal is more than evident.
This is the first time they’ve seen so much of me, I realize suddenly. The first time anyone other than Mark or Tristan has seen this part of my body. The wrongness of it, the shame of being witnessed like this, makes the fever in me simmer even hotter. I hope God made me wicked for his purposes because it can’t be wrong if it’s this indelible to me, right? If it goes deeper than the stain of original sin, down to the very firmament of my soul?
And the wickedness runs so deep that I can’t stop the moan that escapes my chest when Mark kicks my feet apart with brisk prerogative.
He watches as he tests the wetness and heat between my thighs. “I’ve waited so long for this,” he murmurs, and it’s barely loud enough for the microphones to catch. The guests are hushed, straining to listen. “You have no idea, Isolde. Each year of our engagement has felt like a decade. Every hour like purgatory. It’s enough to drive someone mad, this cunt.”
His lips find my earlobe, a nip that mirrors the hard press of his fingers against the swollen nerves. And then a kiss to my jaw, my cheek, so deceptively tender.
His breath over the shell of my ear is as warm as his voice is cold. Only I can hear him. “You belong to me now. Do you understand?”
It feels like even my blood is shivering. What if all along my wickedness was just a perverse attraction to danger? Knives and heartless husbands—even God—what’s the point if they’re not ready to slice me down to the bone?
I keep my reply quiet so the audience can’t hear. “You told me once to play the game like I meant it, even if I was going to lose anyway. I’m here, Mark. Playing.”
“You will lose,” he says, and his voice sounds almost…loving. If something so cold could also seem tender.
“Maybe,” I whisper, and then I turn my head to look at him. We’re close enough that our noses nearly touch, that our breath warms the other’s lips. I take the hyssop bouquet that I’m still holding, and I toss it to the side. It lands on the stage with barely a noise. Soft, springy herbs tied with ribbon. I can smell the sharp, almost-minty scent of it.
Mark’s eyes don’t leave mine, but one of his eyebrows lifts. “Is this a dare? One dropped bundle of herbs and you think I’ll concede the game to you?”
“Your move,” is all I say in response.
A smile like a sizzle of lightning and then his mouth is on mine, hard and demanding, searching for my surrender. Just as I give him my tongue, he smacks his hand against my naked cunt. The pain is like a splash of cold water, fresh and bright, and before I can feel it sluice all the way through my body, he has dropped my skirt and is now dragging me back to the bed.
As I stumble behind him, I catch a glimpse of Tristan in the wings, half in shadows next to Sedge. His eyes are intent on where Mark is holding me, pulling me, his eyebrows drawn together, his mouth pulled down. But his cheeks are flushed, and as I’m watching, his lips separate the smallest amount.
Whatever he’s feeling, it’s just as mixed up as whatever’s inside me.
Lust, doubt. Reckless misery.
Envy above almost all else because evenIam envious right now. Jealous that while Tristan is watching us, I can’t tell if it’s Mark or me getting the lion’s share of all that longing.
But then I’m thrown bodily to the bed, and I can’t see Tristan any longer. There is only Mark, only his wide-shouldered silhouette, his hair gleaming in the candlelight, his weight on my hips as he straddles me.
“What’s your safeword?” he murmurs as he reaches for something at the corner of the bed.
